


The Promise

by TiggyMalvern



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kid!Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 04:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15404661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiggyMalvern/pseuds/TiggyMalvern
Summary: It’s not easy growing up as Will Graham. It’s almost as hard being his father.





	The Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again to [crystalusagi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalusagi/pseuds/crystalusagi) for all her beta work and suggestions, and also to [iesika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iesika) for checking on the details of the US southern vernacular :-)

The words circle around him, over and over, sing-song in pitch, demanding his attention. 

His back’s pressed to the schoolyard wall, his knees drawn tight against his chest, his eyes scrunched shut to keep them out.  
It doesn’t help. It never does. In his head, he can see the letters stretch and flex, dancing to the rhythm of the chant with gleeful grins.  
The light through his eyelid dims as the figure leans closer, blocking the sun. The words are louder now, warbled almost at his ear, crowding him, close and personal. 

He opens his eyes, clenches his fingers into a fist and punches upwards, smashing his hand into the face above his own.

The words are gone, instantly, and there are drawn-out seconds of silence as the blood rushes from Caleb Harris’ nose, smearing over his chin and dripping onto the grubby white of his T-shirt. And then his face crumples up and he turns and runs, footsteps fading into the dirt, leaving Will to sit and soak up the peace. 

There are two drops of blood smeared across his knuckles. He lifts his hand into the sun, the colour leaping vivid as he twists it into the light. It’s the cleanest red he’s ever seen, a pure bright hue, untouched by the summer dust.

The moment’s there to replay in his head, the short, sharp impact of his hand that brought the quiet.

Seven year old Will Graham tilts his head back to the wall and he doesn’t remember; he relives.

*******

The wood creaks as his Dad walks up the steps and across the porch, feet dragging slow and tired. Will already knows he’s in trouble before the door opens, and he slithers from his sprawl over the sofa onto his feet, standing with his arms stiff by his side.

“Hi, Dad,” he says, and he’s trying to act like normal, but it’s hard to ignore the squirming in his stomach.

His Dad sets his toolbox down by the door. “Hi, son,” he says, and he smiles at him, but it’s small and worn and not right. He walks over to Will, stopping in front of him, and Will has to tip his head all the way back to look at him. 

“I got a call from the school today,” he says. “They tell me you hit a kid and busted his nose.”

Will stands as tall as he can and clenches his fists till his nails dig in. “He was mean. He’s bigger than me and I made him stop,” he says, fierce and satisfied, because he won, and it was _good_ to make Caleb pay.

“Did he hit you, son?” his Dad asks gently. “Did he hurt you at all?”

Will thinks about that for a minute. It had hurt in his head, but that’s not what his Dad means. “No,” he says, looking down at his feet now. “He said nasty things.” 

His Dad crouches down to look him in the eye, and Will’s almost the taller one now when he does that. “We can’t go around hitting people just because they say things we don’t like. The world wouldn’t be a good place to live in if we all did that, you know?”

The world doesn’t feel like a good place to Will on a lot of days when he’s in school. “He was saying horrible things about mom,” he says, sticking out his lower lip. “About why she left.”

His Dad sighs and reaches out to rest Will’s hand on his shoulder, one brief squeeze and then gone. “I know, son. But I had to leave work to talk with the principal again, and we can’t afford to be losing money right now, you understand?”

“Okay,” Will says quietly. Sometimes people come to the door, asking where his Dad is and saying to tell him the rent’s late. “I won’t do it again.” His Dad’s so disappointed in him, and something twists and aches in his chest because he let him down, and he’d been proud he could make Caleb stop and now it’s ruined.

Will wants to fall forward and have his Dad wrap his arms around him and squeeze, but big boys don’t want that.

He’s sure his mom would have hugged him anyways.

*******

He keeps his promise to his Dad. He doesn’t hit the other kids when they tease him anymore. 

He doesn’t hit anyone, for anything. 

Until the day he does.

He’s five years older now, still smaller then some of the kids his age and a lot skinnier, and this winter they’re living in a trailer at a boatyard on Plantation Key.

Nothing much happens on Plantation Key. The tourists are up in Key Largo, or they keep right on going down Highway 1 to Key West. December’s too cold for the beach crowd anyways and the snow birds who come for the winter aren’t sailors, but enough of the locals own boats of one kind or another. There’s work to keep them through till the season picks up in a month or two.

Will kicks his way along one of the short stretches of sand between the mangroves, still wet from the tide, poking with his shoes for the creatures that burrow in the mud.

He’s not alone. There’s someone further along the beach, and a dog nearby. A cautious dog that slinks, edging closer to the other person, tail wagging sluggish and low, hopeful and scared.

The boy crouches down, enticing the dog closer. Will’s seen him around school; he’s in the class above him. He doesn’t know his name. It would have been easy to find out, but he’d seen no reason to care.

He cares now. Not about his name, about everything else, because he picks up a stone and he throws it at the dog. Not for her, _at_ her, and her back hunches and her tail tucks as she skitters away. 

She doesn’t go far. She stops and sniffs the air as the boy crouches again and holds out his hand, offering something.

Her nipples hang low. She had pups not long ago. They might still be sucking. 

She circles back and forth, nose outstretched, hesitant to get close and reluctant to leave. 

The second time the stone hits, and there’s a high, clipped yelp as the dog twists and scampers off.

Will breaks into a run, the sand sucking at his feet, and the dog’s running too now, streaking away up the beach. The boy takes off after her, hurling more stones at her tucked-in back, and Will’s not getting any closer, only holding the gap.

It’s a small cove and the dog’s trapped with nowhere to go, caught in the last triangle of sand between the thick tangle of mangrove roots and the ocean. She darts back and forth along the edge of the trees, peering into the muddy darkness beneath before veering away again.

The boy drops back to a walk. He doesn’t need to run any more, with his quarry cornered. He only needs to zig-zag, cutting her off every time she threatens to make a break one side or the other. There’s fear in her eyes, in her low, crouched gait, and the boy strides tall, confident of his prey.

He’s stopped throwing stones now as he edges in closer. He’s saving them for a better shot.

Will picks up a piece of driftwood lying on the beach, because the other boy’s older and stronger and has stones, and he runs up behind him, swinging with his full strength to strike him above the knees.

The boy cries out and swears and drops to the sand, his legs buckling under him. He’s on his knees, twisting to look behind, “Shit, what…?” and Will’s already arcing the stick back around, smashing it into his arm, and this time the boy falls sideways, all the way to the ground, the stones falling from his hand with a clatter. 

He writhes in the sand, gasping and clutching at his elbow, and Will kicks him over onto his back then sinks to kneel over him, trapping him there, the boy’s arms pinned against his body.

He tosses the driftwood away, not enough space now to swing it, and he smacks his fist into the boy’s cheek below the bone. 

It hurts, the impact spiking through his fingers and into his wrist, but not as much as it hurts the bully, the quick, high-pitched shout vibrant in Will’s ears. He’s not avoiding eye contact now, he’s looking and seeing everything, looking all the way into him and feeling the slide inside his mind when he pulls his hand back and hits him again. 

Panic wells up at him, panic and dread gushing from pupils fixed and wide and black, the sharp stab of it echoing in Will’s head, hitching his breath and sending a shiver of delight through his muscles and all the way down into his toes. This thug _should_ suffer terror and pain, just like the dog did, he needs to know what he did to her, and Will hits him again, because he gets to be the one who makes him feel it.

He hits him, and the sharp cry ripples through his head, rich and satisfying, overriding the ache in his own flesh. He hits him and the boy’s writhing beneath him, wriggling and fighting, “Get off of me, get off!” but he’s trapped and helpless, just like the dog, and Will only hits him again. He hits him and the boy’s face crumples in blood, his despair shining within Will, his shouts dissolving into wordless sobs as he twists his face away into the sand. He hits him and he doesn’t want to stop, he doesn’t want to stop, he wants to hit and hit him and never stop because he was going to kill the dog, he was going to kill her just because he could, and he doesn’t deserve for Will to stop.

He doesn’t want to stop, but his Dad wants him to stop, and he can’t let his Dad down.

He already has, he knows, but he stops. He’s crouched over the whimpering boy and he’s breathing hard with his hands tingling. 

Temptation squirms in his head, in his chest; he can hit him _just once more_ before he lets him go. One after so many, it won’t be that different, one more to keep the heat and the thrill pounding through his head with every surge of his pulse.

One more, then one more, then one more after that, always…

He stands up and backs away, each step sinking deeper into the sand of the beach.

The bully crawls to all fours first, then slowly onto his feet, unsteady with the give of the ground. 

He shoots a darting glance at Will, huge eyes and _hate-hate-FEAR_ , a fear that overrides and overwhelms, a flare in Will’s head of _vicious-alien-other_ , familiar from so many faces right before they turn away, and then the boy’s running, running shaky and limping, but he’s running, and it’ll all be okay.

He’s okay if he’s running, and Will won’t have to tell his Dad anything too bad.

He watches him go, and there’s a part of his mind still doing the math, thinking how he’d chase this bully down and cut him off, push his weight onto the bad leg to knock him from his feet. He can see it happen, he can feel it, live it in his head, vivid and tactile…

There’s another part of him that wants to cry.

When he looks around, the dog’s gone. There’s a path of pawprints in the sand leading to one of the little trails, and then they vanish where the earth hardens.

He spends nearly an hour looking for her, calling and searching the bushes along the edge of the beach before he gives up and heads off home. She must’ve run away. 

She must be scared of him too.

*******

He’s brushed most of the sand off of his clothes and he’s hoping to get in the door without being seen, but his Dad’s in the marina yard looking over the prop of a trailered yacht.

He goes still when he catches sight of Will, but he says nothing, only peels off his gloves and follows him inside.

Will stands by the sofa and looks down at his knuckles, scraped and scabbed with dried blood. His Dad’s eyes have gone right there with him. “What happened, Will?”

“There was a boy on the beach hurting a dog.” He’s half way defiant when he says it because he’s _glad_ he hit him, but he knows, he knows his Dad won’t like it.

His Dad takes a breath. “What happened after that?”

Will feels the flash of fear, but it must be wrong. His _Dad_ can’t be frightened. 

“I hit him. And then he ran away.” Will’s not lying, he won’t lie to his Dad. He’s just telling the short version without some of the details is all.

“Come on, son.” His Dad grasps him above his elbow and tugs him towards the sink, holding his hand under the running faucet and swabbing the blood from his knuckles with a washcloth. “How many times did you hit him?” His Dad’s looking at his hands not his face, fixed on picking the sand and grit out of the scrapes.

Will’s not looking at him either now, watching the water flow towards the drain in a wash of pink. “A few,” he tries at first, but it doesn’t feel honest. “Then a few more,” he admits, softer.

His Dad nods, and dabs him dry with a hand towel, the cotton rough and stingy on his raw skin, before he reaches into the cupboard for the box of Band-Aids.

He takes him to sit at the table and peels the wrapper off. “I can’t tell you it’s okay, Will, because it’s not. I’m not mad at you, I’m just…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. Will’s known it since his Dad first looked at him outside. _Disappointed._

“But he was hurting the dog!” he says, louder now, because his Dad _has_ to understand. “She couldn’t defend herself!” If he hadn’t protected her, nobody would’ve, he _knows_ he had to.

His Dad wraps the Band-Aid over his first knuckle and presses it down. “Of course she could, son. She has teeth. If she’d really been hurting, she’d have bit the boy.”

“But she wouldn’t,” Will says, and he hears his own misery thick in his voice. “She’s been taught not to.”

“Yes she has,” his Dad says. He tears the paper from the next strip and his eyes are right there staring into Will’s. “And I’m teaching you the same. There are other ways, Will. We have laws and a system to make people keep them. That’s why we have a sheriff, and judges.” Another Band-Aid smoothed gently into place, covering up the ooze of blood and the missing skin. “The dog can’t ask for help, but you can. Don’t try and fight every battle yourself, son. Next time, go find a cop, or another grown up who can tell the kid to stop.”

There’s the spark of an idea and a flicker of hope in his head, a chance to be better, to do what needs doing without messing things up for his Dad. “Can I be one of those people, Dad? Can I be a cop and make people stop?”

His Dad gives him a quick pat on his sleeve and a tired smile. “Maybe you can. You’ve a lot of years left in school first, though.”

Maybe means yes. Will’s never found anything he can’t do. Only things he _won’t_ do.

He smiles too, big and bright as the flicker bursts into a lighthouse, a lighthouse to steer him away from the rocks. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll be a cop. He’ll stop people hurting dogs, or anyone, and his Dad won’t be mad at him for it, won’t get that look in his eye like he’s clinging on nearly as hard as Will.

He can’t fully get rid of the niggling doubt that if he’d gone for help, it might have come too late for the dog.

*******

They move on from Plantation Key just before school starts again and spend the spring up in Clearwater instead.

*******

He doesn’t get the best education, the way they live – he covers some of the syllabus in school three times and some not at all – but he’s smart and he’s not very sociable, and he reads. He reads at the libraries in twenty-six towns up and down the east coast and around the Great Lakes, and the mix of books he finds inside tells him almost as much about the people there as he gets from looking at their faces.

He reads everything he needs for school and a whole lot more. He reads about the law and about police work, because that’s how he can stop the terrible things and stay in the good world his Dad believes in.

When he graduates high school, he works the boatyards with his Dad until he can start his application to the Academy. 

The day he’s accepted is the proudest day of his life, and his Dad says it’s just the same for him.

*******

He’s twenty weeks into his training when the Lieutenant pulls him from the classroom. 

By the time he makes it to the hospital in Lafayette, things are improving, and his Dad’s awake. Grey and worn beneath the oxygen mask and surrounded by monitors, but awake. 

The plastic chair scrapes across the hard floor when he sits and creaks beneath his weight. Will tries to look at his Dad and not the machines, tries not to wonder how they’re going to pay for all this. 

He leans in towards the bed, but he doesn’t reach out to touch. “How are you, Dad?”

His Dad’s lips twitch, but the smile is a strain. “Feel like I had a heart attack,” he says, and the words rasp through his throat, rough from the tube. “Don’t recommend it.”

“Me either.” Will tries for a smile himself, but it’s not real on his face. “Don’t do it again.”

“Not planning on it,” his Dad says, and he takes a few open-mouthed breaths through the mask before he speaks again. “You shouldn’t be here, Will. You’ve got to finish your training.”

“I’m going to,” he says, and the words are fierce, because he _means_ it. “I’ve got a class on how to write reports to catch up on,” he adds with a rueful grin.

“They think they need to teach you how to fill in a form, son?”

“Seems so,” Will says with a shrug. Laws, regulations, procedures, he’s never had any problems learning lists. He always stays ahead of the classes. He’ll know everything there is to know, and he won’t mess up.

He’s going to work homicide, and nobody can escape justice because of anything he does.

“They’ll figure out how smart you are, Will,” his Dad says, and there’s something of his strength forced back into his voice. “You’ll get your chance to show them. I’ve got faith in you.”

“I know, Dad,” Will says, and the damp’s rising in his eyes, because he does, and he always did.

His Dad’s hand twitches on the blanket, but he doesn’t move to touch him, so Will doesn’t either.

*******

He wears his uniform to the funeral. He’s earned it; it belongs to him now, he’s finally real police.

He doesn’t own a suit, but if he did, this would still have been the right choice.

He doesn’t believe in heaven, not the afterlife they talk about in church or anything much like it, but he knows his Dad’s still proud of him. He stands by the graveside, with a few folks who’d known his Dad from years back, and he holds himself tall, the brim of his cap shading his eyes from the sun.

He watches as the simple coffin is lowered into the grave. The future’s his own to build now. He’ll be a good cop, and not just on the streets; he’ll work his way up, get himself a college degree. He’s going to arrest the people who need to be stopped, every time, and he’ll use the full force of the law to do it.

He stoops to gather the first handful of earth and he knows his path. He’ll be the man his Dad wants him to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! No Hannibal, no porn, it's a big ask, I know XD But if you happen to like it enough to give it a reblog, there's a tumblr post [over here.](https://tiggymalvern.tumblr.com/post/176201418924/the-promise-tiggymalvern-hannibal-tv)


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